Adenocarcinoma of the colon with neuroendocrine features and secretory diarrhea

We report the case of a 63-yr-old man who had severe secretory diarrhea ass ociated with colonic adenocarcinoma, with a prominent signet ring cell comp onent and numerous endocrine cells as demonstrated by positive chromogranin -A staining. Improvement in the secretory diarrhea by the somatostatin anal og Sandostatin suggested that the diarrhea was related to a functional neur oendocrine tumor within the colonic tumor, the first case to be reported in the literature. (Am J Gastroenterol 1999;94:1692-1694. (C) 1999 by Am. Cel l. of Gastroenterology).